Joel Barlow
|birth_place = Redding, Connecticut|Redding, CT |death_date = December |death_place = Żarnowiec, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland |nationality = American |occupation = poet, businessman, diplomat, politician |notable_works = The Hasty Pudding (1793) }} Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 - December 26, 1812) was an American poet, diplomat and politician.Modern biographies are James Woodress, A Yankee's Odyssey: The life of Joel Barlow, 1958, and Samuel Bernstein, Joel Barlow: A Connecticut Yankee in an age of revolution, 1985; an essay on Barlow's ruminations on the planetary hydrological cycle is part of Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory 1995:245ff. In his own time, Barlow was well-known for the epic Vision of Columbus. Modern readers may be more familiar with The Hasty Pudding. Life Overview Barlow, born at Reading, Connecticut, served for a time as an army chaplain, and thereafter betook himself to law, and finally to commerce and diplomacy, in the former of which he made a fortune. He was much less successful as a poet. His writings include Vision of Columbus (1787), afterwards expanded into the Columbiad (1807), The Conspiracy of Kings (1792), and The Hasty Pudding (1796), a mock-heroic poem, his best work. These are generally pompous and dull. In 1811 he was appointed ambassador to France, and met his death in Poland while journeying to meet Napoleon.John William Cousin, "Barlow, Joel," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 25. Web, Dec. 9, 2017. Youth and education Barlow was born in Redding, Fairfield co., Connecticut. He briefly attended Dartmouth College before graduating in 1778 from Yale College, where he was also a post-graduate student for 2 years. In 1778, he published an anti-slavery poem entitled "The Prospect of Peace." From September 1780 until the close of the revolutionary war he was chaplain in a Massachusetts brigade.Schama observes "he had found schoolmastering too humdrum, Yale too sober, and a chaplaincy to a Massachusetts regiment of the line during the American Revolution had not survived his natural irreverence" (Schama 1995:248). He then, in 1783, moved to Hartford, Connecticut, established there in July 1784 a weekly paper, the American Mercury, with which he was connected for a year, and in 1786 was admitted to the bar. Poet At Hartford he was a member of a group of young writers including Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, and John Trumbull, known in American literary history as the "Hartford Wits". He contributed to the Anarchiad, a series of satirico-political papers, and in 1787 published a long and ambitious poem, The Vision of Columbus, which gave him a considerable literary reputation and was once much read. In 1807 he had published in a sumptuous volume the Columbiad, an enlarged edition of his Vision of Columbus, more pompous even than the original; but, though it added to his reputation in some quarters, on the whole it was not well received, and it has subsequently been much ridiculed. The poem for which he is now best known is his mock heroic Hasty Pudding (1793). Besides the writings mentioned above, he published Conspiracy of Kings: A poem addressed to the inhabitants of Europe from another quarter of the globe (1792); View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States (1800); the Political Writings of Joel Barlow were published (2nd ed., 1796) but much of his speculation never passed beyond his voluminous notebooks, many of which are conserved in Harvard's Houghton Library. Diplomat In 1788 he went to France as the agent of the Scioto Land Company, his object being to sell lands and enlist immigrants. He seems to have been ignorant of the fraudulent character of the company, which failed disastrously in 1790. He had previously, however, induced the company of Frenchmen, who ultimately founded Gallipolis, Ohio, to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. He helped Thomas Paine publish the 1st part of The Age of Reason while Paine was imprisoned during The Reign of Terror. He remained abroad for several years, spending much of his time in London; was a member of the London Society for Constitutional Information; published various radical essays, including a volume entitled Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792), which was proscribed by the British government; and was made a citizen of France in 1792. He was American consul at Algiers in 1795-1797, securing the release of American prisoners held for ransom, and negotiating a treaty with Tripoli (1796). He drafted the Treaty of Tripoli, which includes the phrase: "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion". This statement; however, was later repealed by the United States Congress.Boston, Rob, "Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli: A Tangled Tale Of Pirates, A Poet And The True Meaning Of The First Amendment", Church & State, Volume 50, No. 6, June 1997, pp 11-14. He returned to America in 1805, and lived at his home, Kalorama, in what is now the city of Washington, D.C., until 1811, when he became American minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with negotiating a commercial treaty with Napoleon, and with securing the restitution of confiscated American property or indemnity therefor. He was summoned for an interview with Napoleon at Wilna, but failed to see the emperor there; became involved in the retreat of the French army; and, overcome by exposure, died at the Polish village of Żarnowiec. The record in the archives of the church in Żarnowiec reads :Anno 1812, Decembris 26 at 1 o'clock P.M. before us the rector of the Zarnowiec parish and civil recorder of the village of Zarnowiec, Pilica County, Department of Cracow, there came Hon. John Blaski, postmaster and Mayor of the village Zarnowiec, residing here and thirty-six years old, and Idzi Baiorkiewicz, residing at his farm of two quarts at Zarnowiec and thirty-three years old, and declared that his Excellency, Joel Barlow, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Emperor of the French and King of Italy, died on the above day at 12 o'clock at noon in the house No. 1 while journeying from Warsaw to Paris, at the age of fifty-six, son of unknown parents, and husband of her Excellency Mrs. Margaret nee Baldwin, residing in the American city of Ridgefield. After reading this to the present we undersigned it with the witnesses, Rev. Stanislaus Bajorski, civil recorder; John Blaski, witness; Idzi Baiorkiewicz, witness. Recognition *Barlow was painted by Robert Fulton and John Vanderlyn (1798).Illustrated in Schama 1995:246. *Barlow, Ohio, is named in his honor. * He was a contributing editor of the earliest agricultural magazine in America, the Agricultural Museum. *Joel Barlow High School is in Redding, Connecticut. Publications Poetry *''The Prospect of Peace: A poetical composition''. New Haven, CT: printed by Thomas & Samuel Greene, 1778. *''The Anarchiad: A New England poem, 1786-1787'' (by David Humphreys. Joel Barlow; John Trumbull, & Lemuel Hopkins). New Haven, CT: New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine, October 26th, 1786 - September 13, 1787;Anarchiad : a New England poem, 1786-1787, American Verse Project. Web, Nov. 21, 2016. **(with preface by Luther G. Riggs). New Haven, CT: Thomas H. Pease, 1861; Gainesville, FL: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1967. *''The Vision of Columbus: A poem, in nine books''. Hartford, CT: privately published, printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1787. *''The Conspiracy of Kings: A poem, addressed to the inhabitants of Europe. London: J. Johnson, 1792. *''The Vision of Columbus; to which is added, The conspiracy of kings. Paris: English Press, for Barrois, Senior / R. Thompson, 1793. *''The Hasty Pudding: A poem, in three cantos''. New Haven, CT: printed by Tiebout & O'Brien, 1796; Fairhaven, VT: J.P. Spooner, 1796; New York: Fellows & Adam, 1796; Catskill, NY: T. & M. Croswell, 1796. Non-fiction *''An Oration: Delivered at the North Church in Hartford; at the meeting of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati''. New Haven, CT: printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1787. *''Advice to the Privileged Orders, in the Several States of Europe: Resulting from the necessity and propriety of a general revolution in the principle of government.'' **''Part I''. London: J. Johnson, 1792; New York: Childs & Swaine, 1792 **''Part II''. Paris: English Press, for Barrois, Senior, 1793. *''Political Writings''. New York: Mott & Lyon, 1796. *''Joel Barlow to His Fellow Citizens, of the United States of America: A Letter''. Philadelphia: William Duane, 1800. *''Joel Barlow to His Fellow Citizens, of the United States of America: Letter II''. Philadelphia: William Duane, 1801. Collected editions *''Works'' (edited by William K. Bottorff & Arthur Lewis Ford). Gainesville, FL: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Joel Barlow, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 22, 2016. See also *The Hartford Wits *List of U.S. poets References *Samuel Bernstein, Joel Barlow: A Connecticut Yankee in an age of revolution (1985) *Richard Buel, Joel Barlow: American citizen in a revolutionary world (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2011) *James Woodress, A Yankee's Odyssey: The life of Joel Barlow (1958) * *Brian Pelanda, "Declarations of Cultural Independence: The nationalistic imperative behind the passage of early American copyright laws, 1783-1787," 58 Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA 59 (2011), 431. Notes External links ;Poems *''The Conspiracy of Kings: A poem, addressed to the inhabitants of Europe, from another quarter of the world'' (London, 1792) online PDF edition ;Books * Category:1754 births Category:1812 deaths Category:War-related deaths Category:Clergy in the American Revolution Category:People of Connecticut in the American Revolution Category:Dartmouth College alumni Category:Hartford Wits Category:History of the United States (1789–1849) Category:People from Connecticut Category:United States ambassadors to France Category:Epic poets Category:19th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:American poets